


everybody loves pretty, everybody loves cool

by thistidalwave



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Coming Out, Gen, Homophobic Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-30
Updated: 2015-04-30
Packaged: 2018-03-26 12:41:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3851344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thistidalwave/pseuds/thistidalwave
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s a good thing Zimms was never Kent’s only secret.</p>
            </blockquote>





	everybody loves pretty, everybody loves cool

**Author's Note:**

> in the words of the lovely lily, i wrote a fic while procrastinating writing my other fics. such is my life. thank you to lily and megan for being the best supporters <3
> 
> an accompanying fanmix can be found [here](http://8tracks.com/thistidalwave/everybody-loves-pretty-everybody-loves-cool). 
> 
> dedicated, with love, to the kpcc.

It’s early morning on a Wednesday when Kent decides that he’s going to come out.

The Aces are in the middle of a road trip; they just won against the Kings. They've been winning lately, game after game. Kent himself is leading the league in points and scored the winning overtime goal tonight. The locker room is fired up. He goes out to the bar with the boys when they ask because no doesn't feel like an option, and he drinks the alcohol that keeps appearing in front of him. 

Later, he lies on the bed in his hotel room, stares at the ceiling, and thinks _fuck_. 

He should be riding high on life and hockey, but he just feels empty.

He doesn’t feel that way all the time, of course. Sometimes—most of the time—he’s fine. He’s happy. He’s got his team, his ice, his fans, his money, his cat. He doesn’t have Zimms, but he hasn’t had Zimms for years. He’s used to it by now. 

But more and more often lately, he’ll go out and watch his teammates pick up girls and something inside him will ache slightly. He’ll come home and Purrson will greet him at the door, but the dark emptiness of his expansive open-concept apartment will make his heart pang. He’ll mindlessly surf the Internet and find himself wondering what Jack’s up to, clicking to the Samwell Men’s Hockey Facebook page without thinking. He’ll take a spur of the moment trip to Samwell University and crash a party only to leave feeling worse than he did before. 

And sometimes. Sometimes he’ll be drunk and alone, and it will hurt.

He’s done with it. Something has to give, and he already tried getting back Zimms.

It’s a good thing Zimms was never Kent’s only secret.

-

He waits until they’re back in Las Vegas and it’s the night before they have a day off. Then he puts on his most flattering clubbing clothes, tries and fails to tame his hair, and heads out to the gay club that has the website he most likes to stare at and dream about when he’s feeling sorry for himself.

Kent is done feeling sorry for himself. 

The club is dark and loud and full of hot men. Kent’s simultaneously never felt more out of place and more at home in his life. His brain keeps screaming at him that he can’t be here, that he needs to turn around, abort mission, get the fuck out. He resolutely ignores it, stalking over to the bar and ordering an entire line up of shots. They’re rainbow colored to match the wristband he’d been given at the door. Kent takes a picture and then downs them all.

As soon as he’s well on his way to tipsy, Kent hits the dance floor. He can’t really dance, but that doesn’t matter when all he has to do is let various men press up against him and guide his hips to the music. A particularly bold guy leans in to kiss Kent, and Kent tilts his chin up and lets him. He feels like he’s on fire, and he’s not entirely sure whether someone should douse the flames or fan them. He disentangles himself from the guy with a grin and an approving slap of his ass and heads back to the bar.

He places his order and leans against the bar to wait. There’s a tall guy next to him, and Kent takes the time to let his eyes wander over the lithe muscles shown off by his tight-fitting tank top, stopping to appreciate the curve of his ass in his skinny jeans. Kent would absolutely fuck this dude in a heartbeat. The guy glances over at him, then does a double take. Kent smirks. 

“Kent Parson?” the guy yells over the music, and Kent lets his smile grow. It was only a matter of time until someone recognized him, and Kent is considering it good luck that it was someone as hot as this dude.

“The very same!” Kent replies. “You are?” 

“Name’s Logan,” he says. “What are you doing here?”

Kent raises his eyebrows. The bartender slides his drink across to him, and Kent takes his time sipping from it. “The same thing as anyone else,” Kent answers, moving closer to Logan so he won’t have to shout quite as much. “What are _you_ doing here?”

Even in the dim lighting, Kent can tell that Logan is blushing. “Same as you,” he says. Kent can feel the ghost of his breath against his ear. He stops wasting time sipping his drink and finishes it off. 

“Can I get you a drink?” Kent asks.

“I already have one,” Logan says, playing straight into Kent’s hands.

“Can I get you something else?” Kent asks, very deliberately letting his gaze linger on Logan’s mouth. It really is _quite_ a nice mouth. Very plush looking. Kent can think of a few places he’d like to see it. 

Logan looks surprised, then smirks. “Yeah, I bet you can.” 

They leave the club soon after that, and Kent casually presses Logan against the wall outside and kisses him while they wait for their cab to show up. There aren’t any paparazzi around or anything—this isn’t really an upscale place—but Kent is fairly sure he spots a couple people with their phones pointed in their direction. _Good_ , Kent thinks through his drunken stupor, and then he doesn’t think about it anymore.

They head back to Logan’s place, because Kent might be throwing caution to the wind here, but he’s not _that_ stupid. He doesn’t need to tell the stranger he just picked up his address. Logan’s apartment is tiny, but it has a bed, and that’s all Kent really cares about. 

“Don’t worry,” Logan says between lazy kisses after they’ve made good use of the bed. His hands are still lingering on Kent’s ass. “I’ll be discreet.” 

Kent abruptly pulls back and looks him dead in the eyes. It’s just his luck that he managed to pick up a respectable dude, even if he _is_ a great lay. “No, don’t,” he says vehemently. “Be the least discreet you’ve ever been in your life. Tell everyone you hooked up with me. Hell, make it your Facebook status.”

“Um—” Logan says, eyes wide and confused.

“You know what,” Kent barrels on, possibly the best idea in the world formulating in his head, “take a selfie with me right now. Take a selfie where we’re kissing.” 

“Um, I don’t think…”

Kent frowns. “Wait, are you out?” 

Logan laughs at that. “Super, super out,” he assures Kent. “But you’re not, and that’s fine, babe, you know? It’s not anyone’s business.” 

Kent shakes his head. “Stop talking,” he says. Logan sounds too much like the inner dialogue Kent’s had for years, and Kent is done with that. “If you won’t take the selfie, I will.” He doesn’t wait for an answer, just rolls off Logan and out of the bed, locating his jeans so he can fish his cell out of his pocket. He climbs back in next to Logan and smirks at him. “Pucker up, beautiful.” 

“Are you sure?” Logan asks. Kent shuts him up by kissing him.

He takes the selfie. Actually, he takes a lot of selfies, because he and Logan make a pretty fucking hot picture together, all sex-rumpled blonde hair and kiss-red lips. Kent half wishes they could make a sex tape, but that would be a step too far even for him. 

Kent makes sure to pick one where it’s obvious who he is, the profile of his face clear, and he captions it “mmmm tasty” because it’s the first thing that pops into his head. He hits post on Instagram before he can think about it anymore, and when the “finishing up…” message turns to a checkmark and declares “done!” Kent feels something loosen in his chest. Whatever happens from here, this is done. He thinks about Marcia from PR very seriously warning them that “The Internet is forever!” in every mandatory media training session Kent has attended since his rookie year. Kent smirks. 

He turns his phone off and ditches it on the bedside table before straddling Logan’s waist and grinning down at him. “Where were we?” 

“Round two, I think,” Logan says, leaning up to kiss him.

-

Kent wakes to an empty bed the next morning. He doesn’t think too much of it and stumbles blearily into the shower. He remembers the Instagram post in the middle of lathering up his hair with Logan’s fancy shampoo and freezes. He allows himself thirty seconds to indulge the panicked swoop of his heart and then continues with his shower. 

When he’s done, he gathers up his clothes from Logan’s floor, pulling them on as he goes, and then follows the smell of coffee to the kitchen. Logan is sitting at a table that’s been crammed into the tiny kitchen, laptop open in front of him and a cup of coffee clutched in his hand.

“Morning,” Kent says.

Logan looks up. “Hey,” he says. “Coffee?”

“Yeah,” Kent says. Logan gestures to the coffee machine on the counter behind him, and Kent shuffles over to it. It’s not until he’s taken a sip of the cup he gets for himself that he thinks to say, “Thanks.” Logan shrugs in response.

Kent can see the Las Vegas Sun website open to the sports section on Logan’s laptop. There’s a picture of Kent from a pre-game interview taking up half the screen, and he makes the executive decision to move so that he can’t see it anymore. He takes a huge gulp of his coffee and thoroughly burns his tongue. 

“It was brave, what you did last night,” Logan says after a minute. “Really fucking stupid, don’t get me wrong, but brave.”

Kent shrugs. “Thanks for helping me out,” he says, leering appreciatively at Logan. 

Logan snorts a laugh. “Pleasure was all mine,” he says. 

They’re silent for a few minutes, Kent leaning against the counter as he sips his coffee and Logan doing something on his laptop. He’s probably reading about Kent. Kent watches him for awhile, then asks, “Is it bad?” He gestures at the laptop.

Logan bites his lip. “Some of it,” he says after a moment. “But some of it is good. Hey, did you really have to caption it ' _tasty_ ’?” 

Kent bursts out laughing. “Obviously,” he says.

“You really are a massive dick,” Logan says, but he doesn’t sound upset about it. “Listen, I know this was a no-strings-attached thing, and I’m totally cool with that, but can I give you my number? In case you need someone to talk to.”

Kent frowns for a moment, then shrugs. He doesn’t think he’ll want to talk anyone, really, but it can’t hurt. It suddenly occurs to Kent that if he’s out, he can date men. The idea is so foreign to him that he doesn’t even know how he feels about it. 

He makes to hand Logan his phone, then remembers that he’d turned it off. “On second thought… write it down for me?” Kent says, tucking his phone back into his pocket. He’d rather live in blissful ignorance of the shitstorm waiting for him for as long as possible.

He leaves ten minutes later with an orange post-it note folded in his pocket and the taste of too-sweet coffee from the goodbye kiss Logan had given him on his lips. 

-

Eventually, when Kent can’t justify to himself sitting around his apartment watching Netflix any longer, he turns on his phone. He spends the next five minutes laughing hysterically at Purrson, who hisses at the phone the entire time it’s relentlessly vibrating on the coffee table. When it stops, she won’t let Kent pick it up, as if she thinks it’s been possessed by a demon or something. 

He eventually manages to snag it when she’s distracted by licking herself. There’s a truly obscene amount of notifications; Kent thinks he might have over twenty notifications from every application on his phone.

Kent clears them all and calls his mother.

“Kenny,” she says when she picks up, “are you okay?”

“Yeah, Mom, I’m fine,” he says. “How are you?” 

“I imagine I’d be better if you’d let me know that you were going to come out publicly,” she says. “Did you plan it?”

Kent clears his throat. “Well,” he starts, “sort of? I did it on purpose.”

His mother sighs. It kind of makes Kent feel better, if he’s honest. His mother sighing with exasperation is intrinsically familiar to him. “As long as no one posted that picture without your consent,” she says. “Did you warn _anyone_? I’ve had a couple calls asking about you.”

“I didn’t,” Kent says. “Who’s been calling you?” 

“ _Kent_ ,” she says. He can practically see her looking to the heavens as if to ask why she’s been burdened with this. “You should have told somebody. They have people who deal with this kind of thing.” 

“Maybe I didn’t want to be dealt with anymore,” Kent snaps. He takes a deep breath. “It’s whatever. Did Marcia call you?”

“I don’t know who Marcia is,” she says. Kent thanks his lucky stars for small miracles. “There were a couple press people who I told to kindly fuck off, that’s all.”

Kent feels at once very angry at and very sorry for those poor fuckers. His mom on a rampage is nothing to be scoffed at. “Okay,” he says. “Well, um. I just wanted to check in with you.”

“Of course,” she says. “Anytime. Maybe before you make NHL history next time, though.”

“I’ll call you before I break my next record,” Kent says. “From the ice, if I have to. ‘Mom, I can see the opening for a goal. I’m gonna go for it.’”

His mom laughs. “All right, smartass. I love you, okay?”

Kent’s heart feels too big for his chest. “I love you, too,” he says. “Bye.” 

He hangs up and sinks back onto his couch, clutching his phone to his chest and breathing deeply. He doesn’t regret not calling her before, because he knows talking about it with anyone would have discouraged him even if they were endlessly enthusiastic about it, but he feels better knowing for sure that she’s in his corner. Not that he’d ever doubted it, but—well. He has a lot more calls to make. They’re not all going to be that nice.

He bites the bullet and calls Marcia next. 

-

It turns out that if Kent had listened to his voicemails, he would have known that Marcia hadn’t been calling him. Apparently, as is her wont as Head PR Lady or whatever, she’d pawned that off on an intern who’d sounded increasingly close to tears when Kent had finally bothered to listen to the messages. It’s whatever, though. Marcia is terrifying and therefore Kent’s favorite person in the PR department. He’ll call her if he wants to.

Once Kent tells her he posted the picture intentionally, she spends a good five minutes lamenting not actually taking away Kent’s social media privileges like PR is always threatening to do. Then she very professionally rips him a new one by detailing all the different plans they have in place regarding a player who wants to come out. Kent is kind of impressed, honestly, but he’s not about to tell Marcia that. He doesn’t particularly want to sound sorry for what he did.

“Do you want to play this off?” Marcia asks when she’s done. “We still could.”

“No,” Kent says firmly.

“Okay,” she says. “Meet me in the office in half an hour, then.” 

She hangs up before Kent can say anything else. There’s no way Kent can get there in half an hour, but he figures Marcia knew that. 

He brings coffee to make up for being late. Marcia doesn’t look impressed, but she does take it. She then makes him sit in the corner of her office while she and the terrified intern work on writing a press release. Kent thinks he probably didn't actually have to be here for this, but whatever. 

"Kent," the intern says cautiously. "Um, what… do you want to come out as?" 

Kent stares at them.

"Like, a label? It'll be better if people can—”

"I'm gay," Kent interrupts. "Or did you not see the picture of me making out with a guy?"

The intern turns bright red and stammers, “Uh, I—“

"There's no need to be a jerk just because someone is more educated than your sorry ass, Parson," Marcia says calmly. "We'll put that you're gay. Are you in a relationship?"

Kent snorts. “No,” he says. Marcia nods and turns back to her computer.

He goes back to scrolling through his texts. There are a lot of confused messages from friends and family, some supportive ones from teammates, and a few congratulatory ones, which Kent is kind of weirded out by. He doesn’t really feel like he’s deserving of any congratulations. No one is particularly mean, not that Kent would really care if they were. He doesn't feel the need to reply to a single one. 

He wishes he weren’t doing it, but he goes through all his messages three times looking for Jack’s name. He doesn’t find it. He wonders if he would feel a need to reply to a message from Jack, then stops thinking about it. It’s not like it matters.

They let him read over the press statement when they're done writing it. It's very dull, just confirms that it was Kent in the picture and he's not dating the other man pictured, but he is gay. It asks for the public to respect his privacy at the end. Kent shrugs and hands it back. "Okay," he says.

"Now," Marcia says, "is there anything we need to know? Any past relationships, however brief, where the other person could come forward and say something that would reflect badly on you?" 

Kent thinks, immediately and painfully, of Jack. He’s sure that Jack would never say anything even if there was something to say, though, because that would mean throwing himself under the bus. Jack, content with his stupid fucking college team and plans to join the fucking _Falconers_ , would never do something to fuck it up for himself again. Kent shakes his head. 

"You've dated women," the intern says hesitantly.

Kent shrugs. "Not really," he answers, even though it wasn't a question. "Couple dates, some sex, but it was never anything."

"Would the women agree?" the intern asks.

"Probably," Kent says. He's never been very good at pretending to care when he doesn’t.

That seems to be the end of the interrogation, because then they start handing him papers with information about You Can Play as if he doesn't know what it is. Marcia is very careful with her wording, so she never actually _says_ that Kent has a responsibility to work with them, but Kent gets the vibe that she thinks it would help make up for him coming out the way he did. He doesn't think he has a responsibility to anyone, but he agrees anyway. It's not like it's going to be a hardship to look at a camera and say that he's gay and plays hockey. 

Marcia tells him he can leave after that. She also assures him that she—along with the You Can Play people—will be in touch. The intern tells Kent to keep up the good work on the ice, to which Kent responds with a mock salute. 

This, Kent thinks on his way home, probably counts as both the worst and best day off he’s ever had. 

-

By the time Kent arrives at the arena for practice the next day, he’s read all the press on himself. He’d been doing well avoiding it, but then he’d made the mistake of idly checking his Twitter. He was scrolling through his mentions feeling touched by the outpouring of love he’d been sent (quite a few of his celebrity friends had chimed in to support him—that was kind of nice) and laughing at the few outrageously hateful tweets. The people who’d sent them probably didn’t have two brain cells to rub together. It’s 2015; it’s hardly Kent’s problem if someone thinks him fucking dudes affects how he plays hockey. 

From there it had seemed like a good idea to click a link to an article on Sportsnet, and then he’d Googled himself, and well. It was all ‘first publicly gay NHL player’ this and ‘Parson kissing a man’ that. There hadn’t been anything particularly mean-spirited from any official sources; at the most the articles were neutral on the issue. Kent supposes that’s a good thing. 

None of them had featured quotes from his teammates, either, just mentions of a few of them declining to comment when contacted. He’d been kind of surprised by that. They don’t owe him any support, obviously, except on the ice, but—he’d thought someone might say something.

Or he’d hoped they would. It might be less intimidating to walk into the dressing room if he already knew at least one person’s opinion.

Kent pauses just outside the door and shakes his head at himself. He’s the fucking captain of this team. He’s going to go in there like he does every day and if something is different, then it’s sure as hell not him that has a problem. 

Jeff spots Kent first. “Hey boys, look what the cat dragged in! Had a busy day off, eh, Parser?” 

“It was pretty low key, actually,” Kent says. 

Everyone laughs at that. Kent smirks to himself. “Low key, he says,” Jeff mocks. “All right, if that’s what you want to call it. You announce that you’re gay to the world every day, do you?” 

Kent shrugs and starts stripping. 

“You know, I’m a little offended,” Mike says from the other side of the dressing room. Kent doesn’t spin around to glare at him, but it’s a close thing. “You didn’t want to tell us, but posting that picture was cool? Harsh, brah.” 

There are assenting grumbles from the other guys in the room. “Thought we were your bros,” Leonty says. “You did not even text me back.”

It’s not that Kent _doesn’t_ consider his team his bros, because he’s pretty much ride or die for these guys, especially his rookies. But they’re just that: _bros_. They’re not the kind of friends he unloads his entire life story on. None of them want to deal with that. 

If they’re gonna be offended, though, well then. Time for damage control. Kent yanks his Under Armour on and then turns around to face the room. “You’re all my bros,” he says, carefully making eye contact with everyone he can. “If I’d been going to tell anyone before posting that picture, you better believe it would have been you guys. But it was something I had to do on my own, you know? It’s nothing to do with hockey, and that’s what we’re all here for, right?” 

There’s a chorus of agreement, and Kent nods before turning to finish putting on his gear. 

Jeff nudges him in the arm. “Nice speech,” he says, teasing like he always is. “If it’s all business here, should I return the rainbow flags I bought, oh captain, my captain?” 

“Yeah, stand down, sailor,” Kent jokes, but it tastes dry in his mouth. 

-

Marcia waylays Kent after a home game a couple days later. Kent is exhausted after twenty plus minutes on the ice fighting for their 4 - 3 overtime win and another twenty minutes in the dressing room fighting for the media to talk about Jeff’s game winning goal instead of how Kent feels to be a gay player. If it wasn’t for Joe from Aces TV exchanging exasperated looks with Kent and trying just as hard to get the conversation on track, Kent is pretty sure he would have lost it. He’s not entirely sure he won’t still. The press better pray they’ve cleared off by now, because Kent might deck the first person he sees with a camera. 

“Kent,” Marcia says, grabbing his arm on his way out of the building, “I need to talk to you.” 

Kent sighs. “Can it wait?” 

“No, this is what happens when you don’t return my calls or reply to my emails,” Marcia says. It’s a fair point; Kent has definitely been dodging her. He’d _thought_ about replying, that should count for something. “We have requests for interviews from _People, OUT Magazine, Entertainment Weekly_ , MSNBC… the list is fairly long.” She shoves a piece of paper at him, which Kent takes and folds in half without looking at it. “Which ones do you want to do? We’re thinking—”

“None of them,” Kent says, dragging a hand through his wet hair to try to press it flat and wishing this conversation was already over. He has no interest in setting up any kind of image for himself as a role model for gay children everywhere or whatever, which is no doubt what all of those news sources want. He really shouldn’t be looked up to for anything but scoring goals, and he knows it.

Marcia huffs with annoyance. “It would really be better if you did at least one. It would probably stop the press from asking during the post-game. And some of these want to do a photoshoot, I know you like those.”

“None of them,” Kent repeats, frustrated and losing his chill with every passing second that he’s not asleep. This isn’t what he wanted coming out to be like. “I’m not giving in to their shit. I did the press release, and I don’t have anything else to say. I’m here to play hockey and talk about _playing hockey_. They’re just going to have to fucking deal with it.” 

Marcia stares at him for a moment. Kent maintains eye contact, refusing to back down, until she sighs and nods. “Okay, we’ll talk other strategies another day. You’re still booked for You Can Play tomorrow and the Mites on Sunday, you good for those?” 

Kent nods. “Yeah, I’ll be there.”

“You better be,” Marcia says sternly. “Go home and get some sleep, Parson. You look exhausted.”

Kent feels it, too. He waves goodbye to Marcia and heads out of the building, already picturing the warm embrace of his bed. If it were an option, he would sleep for a week, and maybe when he woke up, everything would be easier. 

-

“Let’s just try it again,” the cameraman says patiently. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Kent nods and looks down at his hands, then back up at the camera. Doing the You Can Play spot had been easy up to this point—they’d shown up at the end of an optional skate and filmed Kent and a couple of the others skating around for a bit, then waited while Kent showered and changed into casual clothes. Kent had tried and failed to tame his hair while they showed him the script for the video.

It had been easy to say the generic things like “On the ice, it doesn’t matter who you are, it matters what you can do” and “If you can play, you can play”, and to talk about himself in terms of scoring goals and being a leader on his team, but all of a sudden he feels as though a rock has been lodged in his throat. 

It’s nothing complex. All he has to say is _I’m Kent Parson, captain of the Las Vegas Aces, and I’m gay. I can play, and so can you._ Simple, easy, true.

Fucking terrifying.

Kent is sitting at his stall in the dressing room, a camera staring him in the face, people waiting expectantly, and he can’t fucking say it. Every time he tries, he stumbles over his words, and what words he does get out sound flat and unconvincing, like he’s not quite sure if he can, in fact, play. Kent prides himself on having a pretty good media personality for a hockey player, but it all seems to have gone out the window. He wonders if this is how Jack had felt when they were in the Q, if he’d looked at the cameras and seen a million people depending on him, judging him, trying to pry him open and get inside of him.

Kent would have scoffed at that yesterday. He would have scoffed at it five minutes ago. He never thought he would care this much—it’s just a word. He can say it. It doesn’t _matter._

He doesn’t want to pin the blame on this camera crew, but it certainly hadn’t helped that he’s pretty sure every member of it had mentioned to him how important it was that he was doing this. Kent’s done important things before, played for his country and felt the pressure, but that wasn’t quite… this.

He can say it, sure. But he’s spent five years in the NHL and nineteen years before that _not_ saying it, especially not in a locker room, and apparently he’s fucked up about it. 

“Kent?” the cameraman asks cautiously. “You okay?” 

“Yeah, it’s just…” He trails off and shakes his head. _No excuses necessary_ , he tells himself. _You don’t owe anyone shit._

Somehow the knowledge that he could get up and leave if he really wanted to makes it easier to stay. He steels himself, lifting his chin determinedly, and opens his mouth. 

“I’m Kent Parson, captain of the Las Vegas Aces,” he says, voice steady, “and I’m gay. I can play, and so can you.”

-

Kent wakes up for practice feeling like he could sleep for another ten hours. He fumbles for his phone to shut off the alarm, then drags it over to him to check his notifications. Right underneath his usual email notification, it says “Missed Call from Jack Zimmermann”, and there’s a voicemail notification under that.

Kent is suddenly wide awake, his heart racing. He taps to call his voicemail before he can talk himself out of it. 

Jack’s voice is quiet in the message. “Hey,” he says. “I saw the news, uh, obviously…” He sighs, sounding distinctly disapproving. Kent’s stomach sinks. “I thought you’d be awake, but I guess not. I just wanted to talk to you? And I guess ask you, uh, why now? You seemed fine with… before, so I was just wondering…” He sighs again. “Call me back when you can, eh? Bye.” 

There’s a brief silence before the message ends and the automated voice comes on telling Kent the message options. He listens to the message again before saving it and hanging up. He drops his phone on the bed and stares at it. 

He doesn’t have much time to do anything about it, really, having given himself the minimum amount of time needed to grab breakfast and get to practice on time, but _why now?_ keeps repeating in his head the entire drive to the arena. 

The more time he has to think about it, the more annoyed he feels himself getting. Jack calling more than a week after the fact to specifically ask him _why now_ feels all sorts of wrong. Kent would have preferred a congratulations, and he stills thinks those are weird. And saying that Kent had _seemed fine_ —how would Jack have known? The only time he ever saw Kent was when Kent was desperately trying to get Jack to talk to him again, and Kent’s not sure what about that says ‘fine’. 

At practice, Kent sends a slapshot straight into the boards and gets weird looks from his teammates, but he can’t be fucked right now. 

The thing is, “why now” from Jack sounds to Kent a lot like “why right after I rejected you”, and the idea that Jack thinks he had something to do with this burns. Even if Kent is still a little fucked up over Jack, it was never _about_ him. Sure, Kent wanted Jack to contact him after, but that was because he always fucking wants Jack to contact him. It wasn’t some huge “your move” message. Kent’s given up on expecting things from Jack.

By the time practice is over, Kent’s worked himself up into a rage. He barely manages to wait until he’s home before he’s calling Jack. 

“Hello?” Jack answers promptly, and words fly out of Kent’s mind. He opens his mouth and shuts it, fuming. “Kent?” Jack asks after a moment, sounding confused.

“It wasn’t because of you, if that’s what you think,” Kent bursts out. “Fucking hell, Jack, why now? Because I fucking wanted to.”

“I didn’t say—” 

“Like hell you didn’t.” Kent eyes the wall just inside his door and considers kicking it. “What right do you even have to question me? You haven’t been too worried about me for the past five years, have you?” 

Jack is silent, the only sound between them Kent’s heavy breathing. Purrson stares at Kent from the top of his couch, unimpressed. “I guess I don’t have a right,” Jack says finally. 

“Fuck you, Jack,” Kent says, and then he hangs up. He sits down heavily on the couch and presses the heels of his hands into his eyes. He can feel his face heating up and tears threatening, and he tries to hold them back. He can’t cry _now_ , that would be fucking stupid. 

He can’t stop himself, though, and he ends up sniffling and wiping at his cheeks as if that’ll hide the evidence. He finds himself wishing his phone would ring with a call back from Jack, and that just makes him cry more. He feels eighteen all over again, realizing that Jack was never going to return his calls, except now he’s twenty-four and five years of hope he’d been clutching onto have just fallen to pieces in his hands. 

Jack hadn’t even contradicted him. That’s the kicker, really. He hadn’t even tried to say he’d been worrying.

Kent wants to scream, to say fuck him, to declare that it doesn’t matter, but he just feels defeated. Purrson puts a tentative paw on his lap, and Kent scoops her up and buries his face in her fur. She doesn’t even struggle for a good minute, and that makes Kent sob anew. 

He probably looks a fucking wreck, all red-faced and snotty in that ugly crying way he gets, but it’s not like there’s anyone here to see it. No one can cite this as evidence that Kent Parson is a crybaby fairy, so he just gives in. 

He’s known all this time that he came out, that’s he’s the first openly gay NHL player, that he can’t ever take that back, but now it actually feels real. He's not sure if he was keeping a lid on these emotions or if they just hadn't hit him yet, but he's definitely feeling them now.

It fucking sucks.

-

Part of the reasoning behind bringing hockey back to Las Vegas years ago had been fostering hockey culture, and since minor hockey is a big part of that, the Aces do PR with them all the time. Kent hangs out with one team or another at least once a month, and this month it’s the Mites.

All the kids are under eight years old, so it’s not so much hockey as skating in the general direction of the puck and falling over a lot, but the kids always look like they’re having a great time. That’s what hockey should be, Kent figures. He remembers being young and carefree like that. Hell, half the time he still is.

The kids are all excited to see him, a few of the ones he’s met before demanding he watch this new thing they learned to do. Kent always watches attentively, and he high fives so many kids that he starts to feel like his hand might fall off. He helps the coaches get them together enough to actually practice stickhandling a bit, but it’s mostly chaos. Kent can’t stop smiling at every new story he’s told and question he’s asked.

Not a single one of the kids mentions anything about him being gay, and it’s such a relief to know that there are still people who genuinely just think he’s awesome. Half the media is still mentioning his sexuality wherever possible, even in the middle of reporting his statistics, and Kent is beyond tired of it. 

Near the end of practice one of the younger, more shy kids gets off the ice and sits next to Kent on the bench. He keeps glancing at Kent nervously, like maybe he wants to say something, so Kent says something first. “Hey, man.” He holds out a hand for a fistbump.

The kid clumsily knocks his fist into Kent’s. “Mr. Parson…” he starts, uncertain, and then the rest of the words fall out of his mouth in a rush, “you’re my _favorite_ hockey player.”

Kent’s heart practically melts in his chest. He’s heard that a lot before, but he’s never needed it as much as he does right now. “Thanks, buddy,” he says. “You’re not too shabby yourself.”

The kid looks incredulous. “Really?”

“Yeah, you tear it up out there,” Kent says. The kid’s grin is infectious. “Keep playing, yeah?”

The kid nods vigorously. “I will!” He jumps up off the bench and back on the ice, no doubt to tell his friends what Kent just said.

“And do up your helmet!” Kent yells after him. The kid waves in response, and Kent sits back, smiling to himself. 

-

For once, despite his exhaustion, Kent can’t sleep. He keeps running a stupid move he’d made in the game that had probably lost it for them over and over in his head, and then his thoughts go running off to places like _what if I never score again and get traded and have to live in shame_ and _what if they’re all right and I can’t play anymore._

Kent has no sense of self-preservation, especially not in the middle of the night, so obviously the next step is to go online and read things about himself. 

He ends up reading an article on Deadspin called “The Top 10 Most Fabulous Things on Kent Parson’s Instagram”. The last picture on the list is the one of him kissing Logan, of course, but the rest of the list is a hilarious collection of gay stereotypes that fit the pictures at a very flexible stretch. 

Kent will give them the picture of Purrson in a tiny tiara, but the one from an art show he’d attended and the picture of the time he’d made himself a pasta dish that demanded to be photographed don’t exactly scream “fabulous” to him. The edited picture of himself with _you got that james dean daydream look in your eye_ on it and his agreeing caption is possibly even more of a stretch—it’s not like Kent made that edit. He didn’t even necessarily know that those were Taylor Swift lyrics. (He did, because Taylor is great and 1989 is an incredibly important album, but _still._ ) 

In fact, save the picture of a few of the Aces in the gym captioned “#hockeyass #needssomework”, the rest of the pictures are selfies. Apparently both his “#wokeuplikedis” and slick “#tieonpoint” looks are worthy of being called fabulous, and so is his selfie on a boat surrounded by women—because they’re apparently all “fag hags” now. 

That’s what annoys Kent the most, once he’s stopped laughing about it. The fact that most of the pictures are him rankles—just because he’s gay doesn’t mean he’s necessarily _fabulous_ or what-the-fuck-ever. 

He’s staring at his black-and-white shirtless bathroom mirror selfie when he realizes the real problem: fabulous might not actually be a synonym for gay, but that’s how Deadspin meant it. And they’re fucking _right_. Kent is gay, from his tastes to his face to his food. Everything about him is gay, and _so fucking what_? Throw a fucking rainbow parade. This is just another lowball comment on how being gay apparently affects his ability to play hockey or flat-out _exist_ at all. 

Kent takes a screencap of the article’s title and uses an app to cross out “Fabulous” and put “GAY” in large pink letters. He uploads it to Instagram with the caption “hey deadspin, it's twenty fucking fifteen. if you're gonna write an article full of bullshit stereotypes at least have the decency to call it what it is #whyyougottabeonmydicklikethis” 

Marcia is probably going to kill him, but Kent doesn’t give a fuck. He’s always pretended he doesn’t care, but he’s kind of surprised to realize he genuinely doesn’t this time. It’s freeing, in a weird way. If they’re going to come at him, then they deserve to be shamed for it. He’s gay, and everyone’s going to have to deal with it—including himself. 

-

A couple weeks later, Jeff sends out a team email inviting them all over to his place to hang out after their next game, win or lose. “u know coach is always on our ass about team bonding, so bring drinks and party hats,” it says, and at the end, it specifies “WAGs welcome!!” Kent rolls his eyes and deletes the email. The “team bonding” is really just an excuse for a party, and Kent hasn’t been really feeling partying lately. He might make a requisite ten minute appearance, but he also might just go home to his Netflix. 

They win the game, thank fuck, and Kent’s toweling his freshly wet-from-the-shower hair when Jeff, already dressed in street clothes, punches him in the shoulder. “You coming to my party, dude? You didn’t say.”

Kent shrugs. “Gonna have an early night, I think. Sorry, man.”

Jeff makes a face, but he doesn’t say anything, so Kent figures he’s home free. He’s wrong—halfway through Kent putting his clothes on, Jeff says, “You’ve been doing that a lot lately.” His voice is too casual to be genuine. 

“Been working hard,” Kent says, trying to deflect. “Gotta catch up on sleep.”

Jeff looks at him speculatively, eyebrows furrowed. Kent pulls his shirt over his head and sits down to put on his shoes. “Is this because I said wives and girlfriends in the email? Mike pointed it out to me, and dude, I just didn’t think. You could totally bring a dude if you wanted. We’d all be cool with it.”

Kent stares at his shoelaces in surprise. Sure, he’d been slightly annoyed by the WAGs mention, but that’s nothing new, and he hadn’t been holding it against Jeff or anything. He knows that the team has his back. He glances up and realizes that not only is Jeff anxiously looking at him, various other members of the team are discreetly watching.

It occurs to Kent that maybe he’s been worrying his team more than he thought. It’s touching that they’re trying so hard; maybe it’s time that Kent met them halfway in that. He pulls the bow on his shoe tight and straightens up. “I don’t have anyone to bring, but you know what, I’ll swing by.”

“Sweet, dude.” Jeff grins wide and holds his hand up for a high five. Kent smiles back and high fives him.

He heads straight to Jeff’s from the arena, because he’s pretty sure if he goes home he’ll sit on the couch, Purrs will sit on him, and then he won’t be going anywhere at all. He’s one of the first to arrive, so he makes small talk with Jeff’s girlfriend Amanda and helps her decide what snacks to put out. (All of them, obviously.)

They hit it off pretty well—Amanda is funny and easy to talk to, and Kent ends up sticking with her for most of the night while she makes the rounds and talks to everyone. They spend the most time talking to the rookies, who are flat out _hilarious_ when they get drunk, and Kent is surprised to realize he’s actually having a really great time. 

It’s late enough that some people have already left, and Amanda and Kent are in the kitchen getting new drinks. Amanda stirs together a mix of more things than Kent could keep track of and looks at him, appraising.

Kent shifts uncomfortably. “What? Why’re you looking at me like that?” 

“Why don’t you come out to things with the team more often?” she asks abruptly. “The guys always talk about you, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen you for more than a minute.” She sounds genuinely curious. 

Kent shrugs. He’s buzzed enough for honesty, so he says, “I dunno, it’s dumb, but I feel like I’m not gonna live up to my own reputation.” He smiles, all teeth, around the rim of his glass.

Amanda frowns. “What’s that supposed to mean?” 

Kent bites his lip and considers it. “Well, if I don’t party, then I’m boring and trying to move past my fun days,” he explains. “But if I do party, then I don’t take hockey seriously and I’m not a good role model for the rookies.” 

Amanda snorts. “You know all the boys know you’re a total dork, right? And it’s not like there’s ever a real question about whether you take hockey seriously, come on.” Kent just looks at her, and she sighs. “You’re a fun guy, Kent, and I’m glad I got to meet you, y’know? You don’t have to be on all the time. It sounds dumb, but just be you.”

“Oh,” Kent says, feeling strangely emotional. It might be time to stop drinking. “Uh, thanks.” He swallows the lump in his throat and avoids eye contact. 

“Oh God,” Amanda says, alarmed, “are you going to cry?”

“No, no,” Kent says. “It was just, uh, nice to meet you, too.” It might be inadequate, but that seems like the simplest way to express his feelings right now.

Amanda’s gaze softens. “Good. I expect to see a lot more of you.”

“You will,” Kent says, and he’s surprised to find he means it.

-

Kent is never quite sure, after he comes out, if he’s imagining that crowds on the road are angrier. They’re in Seattle for the second time since, and Kent realizes after that it had seemed like any away game he’s played in the past five years. He chalks the more aggressive crowds up to his insecurity and gives himself a metaphorical pat on the back for moving on.

They lose, but they put up a good fight. He kind of wants to go straight back to his room, but he remembers his resolution to meet his team halfway and goes out to the bar instead. He buys rounds for everyone and relentlessly teases his rookies for their taste in girls until they complain that he’s old and should let them wheel alone. He fucks off to his hotel room feeling like he at least accomplished something good tonight.

The door clicks shut behind him, and Kent fumbles his way over to the lamp at the side of the bed. He turns it on and stands there, suddenly very aware of how alone he is and unsure what to do.

He knows what he would have done a few months ago. He would have gotten ready for bed, crawled in, and laid there and felt sorry for himself. Even after he came out, when things weren’t lining up how he wanted them to, that hadn’t changed.

Kent wants things to change. He’s starting to realize that it’s a constant process. There’s no magic fix for his life. Things might not be perfect, but fuck if Kent isn’t going to try to work until they are. 

He sits down on the edge of his bed and takes out his phone, pulling up his contacts. He scrolls through, considering, and hovers over Jack’s name for a long moment before continuing on. The name Logan catches his eye, and he remembers creating the contact from that orange post-it, thinking maybe he’d be good for a booty call someday. He’d never thought twice about what Logan had actually offered, but… 

Kent taps Logan’s contact and then the call button, bringing the phone to his ear and listening to it ring. He suddenly remembers that it’s fairly late and feverishly hopes he doesn’t wake Logan up or something. 

The voice on the other end of line sounds alert, though, if a bit confused. “Hello?” 

Kent sucks in a breath and lets it out all in a rush. He clears his throat and says, "Hey, this is Kent Parson.”

“Oh,” Logan says, sounding even more confused. 

“You busy?” Kent asks, fidgeting nervously with the bedspread. 

“No,” Logan says slowly. A little bit of that cheek Kent remembers liking so much slips into his voice. “What can I do for you, Kent?”

Kent can’t stop himself from grinning into the phone. “Well,” he says, “I could use someone to talk to.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] everybody loves pretty, everybody loves cool](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8109682) by [attendtothebones](https://archiveofourown.org/users/attendtothebones/pseuds/attendtothebones)




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